Mundane Intercessions
by Lena Carr
Summary: Two views on a morning hillside. Team Group, Carol/Daryl, AU after S5 01 for avoidance of sadnesses. Originally for the USS Caryl Heaven & Hell challenge. More A/N at the end of part two.
1. Annunciations

_In which Daryl relapses, Rick feeds the baby, Tyreese is informative and no one is surprised._

* * *

><p>Footsteps crunched steadily uphill through the early fall leaves. His back against the trunk of a thick white oak, Daryl kept his eyes on the ground before him and the stick he was listlessly jabbing into the earth. The strides slowed purposefully – a live human, not a stumbling walker. But Daryl had known that long before the approaching man had come close enough for Daryl to recognize the pattern of footfalls. They paused just at the edge of Daryl's vision.<p>

Once upon a time, there'd only been a couple people he'd known well enough to name them by their walk alone. Daryl stabbed the stick into the dirt a couple more times, sending a pair of pebbles flying into the leaf litter. There'd been his brother Merle, and the sonnabitch that had called himself father to them both, back when the world had been rich and safe and easy for anyone who wasn't a Dixon.

"Hey."

Now the world had gone to hell, and there were more than a dozen men and women he could identify by their footfalls alone, and half of them he would know blindfolded in the dark, by their bulk and their size and the way they breathed. People he had lived with and fought beside for more than two years, and not a man of them closer to him than Rick Grimes.

Who stood waiting, patiently, his shadow stretching up the hill past the lump that Daryl made against the base of the oak's shadow, backlit by the sun rising over the ridge behind them and the camp tucked into the hollow below. Snatches of voices rose up from the fireside as six women, six - no, seven men, Carl had outgrown _boy_ over a year before - and one year-old baby fell back into the routine of rising and breaking camp.

Their rising chatter covered over the silence that had fallen after the explosive quarrel that had begun the morning.

There was a voice that Daryl wanted to hear, that never reached his ears, but marked itself as breaks in the conversation, in remarks that went unaddressed and questions unanswered. Even without it, the faint murmur of camp voices spread a kind of balm over Daryl's churning thoughts, just as Rick's shadow served as a sort of bulwark, a familiar presence guarding the empty space beyond Daryl's reach.

_When did you get so fucking pathetic, Darleena, that you can't manage an hour without these people?_

"Piece a'work," Daryl snarled, as much at himself as at the ghost of Merle in his head. He snorted, dug at the dirt again, then glared at the stick when it snapped off in his hand. He flung the stick away, hard, only to have it tumble out of his grip and end up stuck in the ground barely a foot out of reach.

"Fuck," he snarled, and when Rick let out half a snort, Daryl buried his face in his forearms. "What the hell do you want?"

Rick took this as the surrender it was and stepped closer before bending his lanky frame down to earth, boots pointing downhill and eyes squinting against the sun. He laid the rifle at his side, as automatic an action as Daryl's finger-light check of the crossbow, counting the bolts by touch.

"Making sure you're okay," Rick said, eventually, eyes still on the camp.

"Not the one you need to be worrying about," Daryl looked around for another stick, settled for a twig thinner than his little finger. Thinner than Carol's fingers, even. He went to stab at the dirt, then went to drawing furrows in the tore-up soil instead. "I can take care of myself."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Rick drawled. "Or, yeah, you can, but it's not just you." A long pause. "Not anymore."

That earned him a glare. Rick raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. Daryl went back to drawing in the dirt. Finally he ground out. "Hasn't been like that for a while."

The silence stretched on. The smell of woodsmoke intensified, along with the thick scent of reheated goop-from-last-night, and boiling water.

Once upon a time, Daryl hadn't even realized that boiling water had a smell. There had been a lot he didn't know. Now it seemed like all the world was full of things he could not guess.

"She's not Lori," Rick said. Daryl turned, shocked. Rick kept his face turned to the sun, but his eyes were looking elsewhere, a long distance away. "She's strong. And you're not me."

Daryl swallowed and shook his head, pushing away Rick's words, not the meaning behind them. "You two did okay. You did good. Carl, Judith – you did good."

"We made mistakes. _I_ made mistakes. Mistakes that I don't want you to make."

"Late for that."

"Not too late, I hope."

Daryl shrugged, waved a hand. "It happened. We – she – we didn't think she could, we weren't being careful – fuck." He took a deep breath, let it out in a gust. "I wasn't careful. And it wasn't like I didn't know no better. Look at Glenn and Maggie." He looked sideways at Rick. "Damnit, look at them, an' at her. Maggie's struggling. And she's twice Maggie's age, at least."

Rick's mouth twisted. "As a man with long years of apologizing to women, I'll advise you to not say that to her." Daryl snarled wordlessly, drawing Rick's eyes to his face. "Oh, no, you did _not_ –"

"What the fuck do you think made her blow up this morning?"

"Oh, man," Rick sighed. "Hoped I'd misheard that. I love you, brother, but that was dumb. Worse than Shane, and that's saying something."

Daryl snarled again, stabbing at the dirt until the twig, too, snapped. He leaned back against the tree, thumb and fingers pressing against his closed eyelids.

Down in the camp, Judith's voice rose in peeved protest. Rick shifted, rustling leaves as he did, and raised a hand to wave down to the group. Judith's voice hiccupped and grew steadily closer, Tyreese's heavy steps bearing her up the hill to her father.

"Hey," Tyreese rumbled.

"C'mere, you," Rick said, open hands reaching for the girl. "You not eating for Aunt Beth again?"

Tyreese smiled, shaking his head. "Not at all. Not for me, either, or Michonne." He passed over a little tub and a spoon. "Here, hope you have better luck." He turned to Daryl. "Something else for you to look forward to, huh?"

Daryl peeled one eye open and gave Tyreese the finger.

"Hey, not in front of Judith," Tyreese chided, then broke into a grin, kneeling to bring his bulk down to sit in the leaves on the other side of Rick, who was murmuring at Judith and waving a spoon just out of her reach. "But hey, I figure that's not all that you've been doing in front of Judith, when Carol was taking a turn at babysitting, and you were hanging around, 'resting'."

"Fuck you, man."

Tyreese sat back. "Easy. Look, I know a shouting match wasn't how you were planning on breaking it to the rest of the group, but we were getting tired of waiting on you guys anyway. Now it's out, we deal, and go on." He bent forward, poked a finger at Judith. "Hows about that, Judy? You'll have two playmates soon enough. Teach 'em all your best tricks."

Daryl scowled. "What the fuck you mean –"

"Watch your lan-gu-age, Dar-ryl," Rick sing-songed. "Air-plane go-oes into the hang-ger…"

Daryl ignored him and his stupid feed-the-baby song. It wasn't even her favorite. "- tired of waiting? You knew? How the fuck'd you know?"

Tyreese blinked. "Yeah, of course we did." He looked at Rick. "We all knew."

"…the fuck?"

Rick gave Daryl a look and a stern, "Language," before turning back to Judith. "Carol asked Michonne to get her a test on a run, five weeks back or so. Michonne told Carl, I gather more or less by accident, and Carl told me. And Beth, I think. Ah, there you go, isn't that great? No, I got the spoon, you take care of the chewing." He bent to rub noses with Judith, who grabbed at his lip and eyelid simultaneously.

"You think?"

Tyreese shrugged. "I got it from Sasha. Sasha got it from Bob. Bob got it from Eugene. Eugene said that Rosita told him. Rosita wouldn't say, but if Beth knew, then prob'ly Beth told Tara, and Tara told Rosita."

Daryl buried his face against his hands again. Well, at least that wasn't everyone.

"'Course," Rick said, having rescued his nose from his daughter's probing grip, "If Rosita knew, then I don't doubt that Abraham knows. Before, I mean." He spooned another morsel of goop-from-last-night into Judith's mouth. "There you go. And Maggie, too. If Beth knew."

_Unbelievable_.

Maggie's voice rose from the camp, calling down Glenn from over-watch to breakfast.

Daryl sighed. "At least the chinaman didn't know." Small comfort, like letting the old insult slip past his tongue, but Daryl'd take what he could get. "He'd have blabbed it all over four states." Never mind that they'd been shifting around the Georgia-Carolina border for the last two months. "You guys better go eat, before Carl and Michonne start fighting with Maggie over leftovers."

Tyreese nodded, shoved himself upright. "You want me to take her?"

Rick shook his head carefully, wiping a bit of goop-laced drool from Judith's mouth. "I got her. Be down in a minute."

In the space after Tyreese left, Daryl watched Judith smack her lips a few times before snuggling up against her father – she could barely make both hands and one foot do what she wanted all at the same time, but she had tucking into a ball against one's chest down pat – and letting her eyes slide shut.

Rick, too, let his eyes close, nose buried against his daughter's hair.

Daryl cleared his throat. "Something else different, too." Rick's eyes opened, questioning.

"You. You ain't Shane."

Rick didn't move for a moment, and Daryl wondered if he'd stepped too far back up the trail, if Rick had any clue what the fuck Daryl was talking about. Then he blinked, as if making the connection, and nodded.

"Whatever you need, I'm here."

Daryl nodded. Carefully arranging everything – rifle, child, goop-smeared tub and spoon – Rick clambered to his feet. When Daryl would have risen, too, Rick waved him down with three free fingers. "I got it. You come down when you're ready." He grinned over Judith's head. "Or when you hear Judith crying to get changed. You'll need the practice."

"Fu-Screw you, man." But Daryl smiled as he said it – it was a smile, he was trying - and settled back down against the tree trunk.

He thought about shifting further up the slope, to get a better view over the hill – now that Glenn was down eating, that technically put Daryl on watch – but he could see well enough from his spot, and hear, as well.

The footsteps were closer than he liked before he heard them, for all that he had been listening – wishing –

- _Wishing on a star, like a little girl, Darleena_ –

- For them.

"Hey," Carol said, carefully –

- Fuck, he had _really_ dicked it up, he'd made her wary, made her think back to that old shithead of a husband of hers, never should have done that, never should make her think of that, had she been walking quietly, cautiously, because of Daryl, what he might do –

- "Brought you some breakfast." She stood just out of reach, holding a bowl of goop.

"Thanks." Daryl put a hand on the oak and leveraged himself to his feet. Carefully didn't step any closer, didn't raise a hand towards her. Kept his eyes on her booted feet, on the worn knees of her trousers, on the slight curve of her shirt, over the belly beneath it.

One handed, she held out the bowl.

"Sorry. I mean, shit. Thank you. For breakfast." His fingers slid over hers, taking the bowl, and he finally raised his eyes to hers. Her eyes were shadowed, the crowlines deepened, and a smudge of cook-soot stretched over her chin and up one cheek. She had dried puke on her shirt – Judith's, and likely her own, from the morning sickness that had been getting worse every week. That morning, awoken when she had bolted from the bedroll to find a place to vomit up last night's supper, Daryl had been finally shocked into voicing his fears.

She'd been wearing those clothes for three days, there was a little stick tangled in her hair and this close, he could smell the five days since they'd had enough water to wash in.

Now his mouth did that thing again, for the second time in two hours, moving before his brain got a word in edgewise. "You are the most beautiful thing on the planet," he blurted out.

She jerked her hand back as if scalded, and he snatched at it, two handed, the bowl and the spoon and the goop going into the leaves. Carefully, he folded his fingers around, between hers. _Not letting you go_. "You are. I'm sorry."

She had her other hand to her mouth, fingers pressing her lips together and brightness welling up in her eyes. She shook her head, then nodded, and whatever she might have been about to say, Daryl couldn't hear, because he had pulled her into his arms, she had crushed her face against his neck, and he was holding on to her shaking shoulders with every last bit of strength he had in him, held her until his knees were trembling.

She held him up, holding her.

* * *

><p>Down at the fireside, Glenn looked up from breakfast long enough to note the two figures wrapt around each other before going back to spooning up hot mush. "About time," he griped around a mouthful. "It's been three whole days, and it was <em>killing<em> me, to not say anything."

"Three whole days, Glenn?" Sasha frowned, tugging her boot laces tight. "However did you manage?"

Maggie snorted. Half the camp rolled their eyes. Abraham let out a braying laugh.

Glenn glared at them "It wasn't easy! I mean, think about it – Carol and Daryl are having a baby!" His voice rose at the end, and Maggie shushed him.

"I am thinking about it," Eugene said, from atop his still unpacked bedroll. "And I am not sure that the implications of mixing those two genesets are all positive."

"What," Glenn choked on a mouthful, swallowed, and went on. "You don't think all the end of the world needs is another murderous redneck with a stone-faced killer expression?"

Rosita looked up from wiping out the breakfast bowls with a handful of leaves. "If that redneck is on our side, then, yeap, I think it's great." She rose and went to pack the dishes away. "Besides, it could be a girl." She looked around the camp. "What? It could be."

Noah pulled his cap down over his head. "If it's a girl, then we really need to look out." He reached a hand down to Beth. "Am I right? You know I'm right. Gimme a hand with taking down the wire?" Beth wrinkled her nosed at him, but accepted the help up, and pulled out her gloves. Bob took the other end of the wire and rolled it to meet them.

"Alright people, knock it off, they're heading down." Rick kicked at the fire. "And speaking as both a friend and your leader, I'd take it as a favor if you all would refrain from riding them too hard about this. Especially Daryl."

"Man's a big boy, he can take it," Abraham objected. "Besides, he gets all cute and red around her. Or talking about her. Or thinking about her. It's more fun than three walkers with their shoelaces tied together – and that's funny as _dick_."

"But still not as funny as watching you bleed to death after he stabs you, and she refuses to waste bandages on you." Tara picked up her pack and slung it on, staggering a little under the weight. "Come on, Eugene, get your stuff."

Abraham took note of the dwindling audience, but wasn't ready to let it go. "Now why would she do a thing like that? To a swell guy like me? After I've saved all your lives so many times?

"Because you'd just do it again," Carol said, stepping up to the smoldering remains of the fire, Daryl at her side so that their elbows brushed against each other. "And you should have learned from the first time." Abraham turned and opened his mouth to say something. But while Carol's voice was teasing, Daryl's eyes were not. Abraham shut his mouth and slung up his rucksack, the top of the load towering over his head. On the other side of the fire, Rosita and Maggie had finally gotten Eugene up and under his backpack. Glenn held Maggie's half-empty rucksack while she slid her arms in.

"I still think-" Glenn said, before Maggie put a finger on his mouth.

"I still don't care." She kissed the finger, gave him a smile, and took her rifle from him.

Rick swept the campsite with a practiced eye. "All right, people. Let's move out. Alexandria's not getting any closer by us standing still. Glenn, you got point?"

"Naw," Daryl said, after a glance at Carol. "I got it." He touched her elbow, she nodded back, still tugging her pack straps into place.

Michonne caught Rick's eye, nodded and mouthed _I got him_ before stretching her legs to catch up with Daryl. Rick nodded, slung his rifle forward for walking, and fell in beside Carl. The rest of the group spread out after them, Abraham and Sasha falling to the rear.

They left behind a crust of stew on the leaves, a faintly smoking firepit, and Abraham's voice, floating back with the last word. "We take long enough, all of us'll be toting babies by the time we get to Alexandria. Even you, Tara."


	2. Magnificant

_In which Maggie is sensible, Michonne is not awoken, Judith is cranky, and Tara has a bit of hero-worship going on._

* * *

><p>The sky was on the edge of growing light when Tara woke – still thick with stars, but the color of wet slate and no longer fathomless deep darkness. All around her, the camp went on sleeping – fifteen people tucked up together in twos and threes. The last of the starlight glinted silver on the strands of barbwire surrounding the camp, strung from trees marked with pale slash marks. Tara's sleeping bag lay on the outer edge of the group, as someone's (several someones') must. From where she was curled inside the tarp-draped bag, she could trace the mass of the eastern ridge as a darker line against the sky below the triple warning line of wire, cord and chain.<p>

The alarm bells hung silent as the stars. Across the camp, Abraham was snoring in a steady, rumbling rhythm that rang counterpoint to Eugene's closer, quieter, whiffling snorts. The air was cold enough to seep through Tara's hair to her scalp, but her sleeping bag was warm, she didn't need to pee too badly, and she wasn't on breakfast detail this week. Tara snuggled back down in the bag, determined to snatch another half an hour of sleep before true dawn pushed them all out of their bedrolls.

Her eyes had drifted shut again, on the verge of dozing off, when a brief murmur from one of the inner bedrolls turned into a dark form jerking up and out of a doubled heap of blankets and bolting for the perimeter fence. Tara lifted her head in alarm as the person – slight, female, short wispy hair, Carol – stumbled over two other bedrolls before kicking Tara in the ankle on the way to the perimeter, ducking under the alarm wire, and staggering over the close-piled firewood before falling to her knees to retch into the leaves.

The other occupant of the bedroll – Daryl – was close on her heels. He managed to avoid both of the bedrolls that Carol had nearly tripped over but caught Tara in the other calf and hit the perimeter wire – and the warning bells – full on. Behind him, Maggie woke, voicing a groggy protest. Tara felt her head spin as she swung her head one way – to the two half-seen forms in the darkness – and the other, as Maggie heaved herself half out of the blankets – breasts and belly both straining her worn sleepshirt. Maggie reached out, found Glenn's space beside her empty, then jerked her other hand free of the bedroll to find the butt of her Savage – all before wedging herself upright and raking the hair out of her eyes. All around them, the rest of the camp was coming up out of sleep, finding weapons, calling out questions in low, strained voices.

Mostly low.

"Son of a one-balled monkey-banging mule – what the hell is going on?" Abraham was up and awake, a pale mass of naked flesh

"Give me a count," Rick snapped, rifle up, knife in hand, and kneeling bare-legged in mismatched socks and thin boxer shorts on top of his bedroll, covers flung sprawling. "Who's watch? Any walkers?"

"Glenn – Glenn's watch," Maggie said, resting her rifle on the broad curve of her belly. "Glenn and –"

"Me," Michonne said, clear and carrying from across the hollow, well outside the wire. "All clear, no sign of walkers. Daryl, what are you doing?"

Daryl's answer was lost beneath Abraham's peeved grumble. "Goddamn dicked-headed dicking around like a damn self-wanking baboon –" .

"Shut it," Rick snapped. "Who's missing?"

One by one, the group called in, voices lending personality to the figures in the pre-dawn twilight. No one missing. By the time Daryl, cursing, untangled himself from the wire, the first alarm had worn off. He reached Carol in the same moment that Michonne – armed and fully bundled against the cold, came down the hill to crouch beside the grey-haired woman.

"Carol, are you okay?" Beth, up and struggling with her boots, and pausing to snatch up a blanket before crossing the campsite, stopping with one hand on the perimeter wire. She got a non-descript answer for her trouble.

Just then, Judith woke up and began to fuss.

Tara put her weapon back on safe, buried her face in her hands, and gave up going back to sleep.

Which was just as well, because as soon as everyone else relaxed, Daryl and Carol started yelling at each other at the top of their lungs.

It started low enough – not that either of them tended to be loud under normal circumstances, and Tara couldn't actually remember ever hearing Carol shout. But after a series of terse murmurs –

"- back off –"

"- tryin' t'help, goddamn stubborn – LET ME –"

- broken by the intermittent sound of Carol being audibly sick to her stomach, again, they started getting noisy.

As far as Tara could tell, Daryl escalated it with, "And how the hell did you get in this fix, then, if y're so smart!"

"You were –" cough "- there –" cough "- brain-dead, snot-nosed BRAT!" Carol's voice rose at the end, breaking hoarsely along the way.

Tara met Maggie's eyes, whose face was as shocked as Tara felt, white showing all the way around her eyes. _So this is it, then…holy shit…_Tara abruptly kicked around in the bottom of her blankets until she found the jeans and overshirt she had tucked way down, so as to not be totally freezing when she woke up. At the corner of her vision, she was aware of Rick hastily kicking on his pants as she pulled her long sleeved shirt over her ears. Maggie was dressing just as furiously.

Tara's head popped out just as Daryl let go, loud as anything Tara had heard during the Terminus brawl, with, "You are too fucking old for this! Quit –" as he reached out to shake Carol by the arm, hard.

Carol's recoil was as much sound – scrambling through crushed leaves and a ringing slap – as Carol – Carol – bellowed "BACK! THE FUCK! OFF! DARYL!"

The stunned silence was only broken by Carol puking again. After two breaths, while Tara's heartbeat thundered in her ears, the shadow that was Daryl turned and stalked back to the wire, slipped through it like water, stepped cleanly over Tara and around the other no-longer-sleeping people, stopped at his – and Carol's – sleeping bag, collected his crossbow and jacket, and proceeded on through the far side of the perimeter, and by the softly fading footsteps, up the other side of the little hollow.

Carol snarled something else, and Michonne's darker shadow also stepped back, hands high against the brighter sky.

Judith stopped fussing long enough to take a deep breath and let loose with a full-blown wail. Beth dropped the blanket and made her way to the baby.

"Need water," Carl said, already rocking the baby against his shoulder. Beth nodded and started digging for the formula can.

Maggie pulled her coat on and stood, hopping a bit to get her jeans to settle right. Stomping her feet into her boots, she said, "Tara, need you to give me a hand," before slinging her rifle, snatching up the common roll of toilet paper, and pausing at the firepit long enough to slosh warm water on a rag.

Thus equipped, Maggie led Tara through the perimeter wire and half way to the latrine pit, skirting around Carol as they went. "Go on," Maggie said, pressing the toilet paper in Tara's hand. "Go ahead."

Back at the camp, everyone was stirring. Tara finished in record time and crunched back over to Maggie, who stood with folded arms, staring at Carol, who still knelt in the leaves. Every inch of the older woman radiated _misery_.

Maggie nodded at Carol. "She hates people fussing at her," she said quietly. "You sit here, with this," the still-hot damp rag, "and when she's a bit better, she'll want the wash cloth."

"Okay," Tara said, taking the rag. "You need a hand?"

"Got enough help. You sit here, not too close, keep an eye on her."

So Maggie made a trip to the latrine, walking fast, and Tara sat, feeling a bit useless, while the rest of them quieted Judith, made their own trips to the poop pit, built the fire back up again, walked down the hill to the damp spot where they had gotten water the night before, started re-heating goop, folded their sleeping bags, and put their clothing straight. Not exactly in that order.

Carol puked a couple more times before finally sitting back on her heels and rubbing her face. Dropping her hands, eyes still closed, she said, "Hey. Sorry about that." Her voice was a raw croak.

Tara rolled up to her feet and paced over to crouch down at arm's length. "Here," she said, holding out the washcloth. "Maggie said you'd want this."

"Thank you." Carol wiped at her mouth and eyes and blew her nose, managing to look gloriously regal the entire time. "Thank you," she said again. "I – that was…god."

"Ummm…." Tara began, and then hesitated. "If you want, you can practice on me. Or you can go apologize to everyone at once, and get it over with. Not," she said hastily, when Carol turned an amused look on her. "That you need to apologize for anything. At all. But, I thought, you were going to do it anyway…"

That got her a faint wry grin. Tara took a deep breath and sighed. _One for the clown auxiliary_. She stood and held out a hand. Carol took it, leaning on her very little.

Back at the camp, a pair of logs magically appeared for Carol to sit on, and she was offered a cup of hot water, and the chance to hold Judith – who was refusing to eat breakfast - if she liked. Carol did. She offered an apology for the poor start to the morning, and was roundly shrugged off.

"It's not like we don't get woken up every third night by someone having a nightmare," Maggie said pragmatically.

Rosita rolled her eyes and chimed in, "And at least neither of you snore. So you're ahead of a lot of people."

"Yeah, when it comes down to people getting shoved off a cliff, you and Daryl are so far down the list, we'll be in Alexandria before we find that many hills." Sasha held out her hands for Judith, who had finished the few teaspoons of formula they had left, and was refusing to let Carol feed her goop. "C'mon, baby, let's see if Unca Ty has any better luck."

Rick came to his feet and stepped up to Carol, pausing long enough to put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, gave him the same small smile she'd graced Tara with, and patted his arm in return. Rick nodded –

- _family mind reading, like Lilly, like Dad, like Lilly knowing what Megan_ _wanted_ –

- and made his way out of the perimeter, heading up the hill. Carol watched him go, her eyes resting on the figure at the top of the hill, back to the camp, hidden by a broad tree trunk except for one shoulder and the familiar shape of the crossbow.

"He ain't gonna stay mad," Michonne said, suddenly, from the edge of the camp. "Wouldn't kill him if you did, though."

Carol sighed, dropped her gaze back to her hands. "No," she said, finally. "But it's just too exhausting."

"Make him make it up to you. Get you something nice," Rosita said.

Abraham's head came up from the bedroll he was wrestling with. "What the hell? What kind of ideas are you giving her?"

"Good ones," said Beth. There was an abrupt shifting among the men around the fire, as they seemed to find other places to be. Tyreese abruptly picked up Judith and started up the hill.

"Don't know about that – it's not like the man has a lot of options," Sasha pointed out.

Michonne snorted. "Still lots of squirrels," and went to relieve Glenn from overwatch.

"Just, please, for the rest of us, go easy on the make-up sex, okay?" Maggie took bowls and started serving out goop. "At least until we find someplace with a room. Rooms. Not everyone is a connoisseur like Eugene." She passed a bowl to Beth. "Or Tara."

Tara squeaked in outrage – _oh my god, please, no, please no one caught _me – but Rosita was laughing so hard she had to stuff her wrist in her mouth, and it was Maggie making the joke, who had been at least as bad as Rosita, and now even Carol was laughing, her face buried in her hands.

When the laughter trickled off – mostly because people had begun to eat – Maggie scooped up one more helping and held it out to Carol. "You up to eating? You got to help me out, make me not look like a pig."

Carol shook her head, then relented and held out a hand. "No. Maybe later. But I know who will be hungry."

"Letting him off way too easy, girl," Sasha said, disapprovingly. "Not setting a good example." Carol shook her head, stood and bumped Sasha on the shoulder as she went.

"Don't be mean. Wait until he has to change diapers, then you can give him trouble." She squared her shoulders and ducked through the wire, heading up the hill.

* * *

><p><em>end<em>

**A/N ** Setting: somewhat post S501, but AU with Noah and without sadnesses. (Bob & Beth) Team Group. PG13 for Dixon mouth, 5,500 words. Daryl/Carol, pregnancy, smutless, some foul language.


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